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JANUARY 18: Telling a Story Through Photos

ashleywb

ashleywb

Sand in my toes
Joined
May 2, 2012
Messages
8,816
Well hello my fellow MOCers.
Today we consider an age old dilemma. To crop, or not to crop, that is the question.

I tend to crop photos because I want them to look pretty on my page. I often crop them close and cut out anything I find undesirable for whatever reason. Many times I do not stop to really consider how my photos serve my story when I crop them. Let me show you what I mean.

Here is a photo of me with my daughter at her end of semester holiday party/awards ceremony. I have cropped it and made it black & white.



Now, here is the original, and I'm sure you can see why I was tempted to crop it. The background is busy, the colors are a bit wacky, and it is just altogether not a great photo



BUT, if I take of my artistic/creative outlet scrapping hat for a moment and put on my storyteller/memory keeper hat, let me tell you what I see in the original photo that is missing from the cropped version…

The location is the school Media Center. The party was held there because school enrollment is up and the entire 5th grade was moved to trailers this year and for various reasons we couldn't have the party in a trailer. When my daughter looks at this photo in 10 or 20 years she will be reminded of what her elementary school library looked like, crazy colors and all and I think it will mean more to her and stimulate her memory much more than my closely cropped black & white.

So, I am asking you today to consider the entire context of your photo. How does it serve your story and your desire to record complete memories? Consider that times and styles change. Our surroundings add so much to our stories. You very likely won't keep the same furniture or live in the same house for your entire life - might you want to look back on those things one day? I feel a sense of nostalgia over speckled turquoise counter tops from the 70's, but would I feel that if I had never been shown pictures of myself at the counter as a child? Even cityscapes change - favorite businesses & restaurants close, buildings go up and come down…and our photos catalog those changes. Ah, I ramble…

THE CHALLENGE: Select a photo with a background that you would normally be tempted to crop out - but that serves your story. Then scrap a page using both the original and cropped version of the photo on your layout. As this challenge has a storytelling focus there needs to be some journaling on the page.

Here is my page.



I honestly can't wait to see what you come up with.

The Rules: Your page must be a new page in order to count for the Month of Challenges. Please post your page in your page thread you created in this folder. You should have one post per completed challenge page. If you complete all 31 challenges, your thread should contain 31 posts. Please do not comment in the participants’ page threads so we can keep them clean. You should also post your page here in this thread, and people can comment here if they wish. Pages should contain at least 75% current Lilypad product (currently for sale in the store from either permanent designers or guest designers).
 
what a good challenge. i usually crop in camera as much as I can....and in older photos I tended to crop *too* tight in photos. this might be hard to find the right photo!
 
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I am looking through photos trying to find the right one. :) Is it okay if we use two different shots but from the same time? like one that was framed wide and one that was framed tight? Not sure if I have any like that either, but probably more likely. Or does it have to be the exact same image with two crops?
 
wow! this is a great challenge Ashley! forcing me to think and see my pics differently. seems like it will be some time before i post my page :)

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Finally found the pics that seemed perfect. Thanks for the challenge - really different one :)

 
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This is a great idea for a challenge. Off to trawl through my photos :)
 
mollyc said:
I am looking through photos trying to find the right one. :) Is it okay if we use two different shots but from the same time? like one that was framed wide and one that was framed tight? Not sure if I have any like that either, but probably more likely. Or does it have to be the exact same image with two crops?
Click to expand...

If you have two photos of the same subject matter taken at the same time, that will be fine. My main objective is that we consider how the setting of our photos adds to story. :)
 
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uhm now I have to start looking and thinking... :)

here it is:
 
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okay, thanks for clarifying! I think that will be easier for me to find.

I think this is a great challenge because we moved away from a house a few years ago and I wish I had more interior shots of that house when the kids were small, but they are all cropped so tightly. I tend to shoot more loosely now, but also still to tend to frame with intention for the final image. I wish I could go back in time and shoot wider. ;)
 
great, thanks for clarifying! still searching! ;) i think you are on to something with the school photos, though.
 
mollyc said:
I think this is a great challenge because we moved away from a house a few years ago and I wish I had more interior shots of that house when the kids were small, but they are all cropped so tightly. I tend to shoot more loosely now, but also still to tend to frame with intention for the final image. I wish I could go back in time and shoot wider. ;)
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing, Molly. This is just what I had in mind when I created the challenge. I have lots of pages with photos cropped tightly, even just faces. Funny thing is that even though I really believe in the idea of the challenge, it was pretty hard for me to make the page! :giggle
 
I had this photo out for an OOB with the basket...and this challenge caught me. I was gonna crop all his hard work out of the story...this is one of those challenges that make you think again why do we scrap!
 
I intentionally got a camera that allows me to crop later, it was easy to find a picture for me, but this was still a great thought exercise for me. I like to take pictures of décor and scenery but I tend to do it separately from the pictures of the people and events.

In this one I made no effort to crop in camera because she was moving on a zip line and I took a whole bunch of pictures in a row, figuring at least one would look nice. :giggle I'm not awesome enough to move the shot with her as she zips along.

 
Love this. So many times I'll take a picture of ordinary things. Non scrappers wonder why I take so many pictures. I always tell them I want to remember everything. You can never take too many pictures. Each one tells a different little bit of the story. I was just explaining this to my mom the other day. I was describing our downtown from the '70s. I wish I had pictures of us at the Ben Franklin five and dime. It was just the 2 of us growing up. I know she liked going there because I'd always find something cheap that I loved. I remember finding yellow & hot pink mascaras one time. Those stores don't exist anymore. Now there are dollar stores, but it's not the same. I remember loving the pet section with fish & small birds.
 
I really struggled with this! But ultimately I loved that you forced me to scrap a wide shot. When we take the dogs to the park and let them off-leash, they love to run and explore! Aspen used to stick pretty close to us (she's a rescue and I assume was afraid we would leave her if she got too far away). But over time, she's gotten comfortable going out on her own and exploring. Normally I would have cropped this photo WAY in, but I love that this shows her so far away from us, comfortable that we won't leave her. And I kept the crop a little further out, to keep some color in the photo.

 
Wow, ladies! Gorgeous, gorgeous pages already. Thank you for really taking the challenge to heart. I have such a huge smile on my face right now looking at your layouts!
 
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